The major problem of global warming demands that future energy technology must comply with both the requirement for increased energy and cost efficiency as well as the need for significant reductions in the CO2 emissions. A crucial element of CO2 handling in recently developed processes as well as in future processes not yet developed is the CO2 capture, i.e. the way of industrially separating CO2 from a mixture of various gases.
High temperature processes such as the combustion of fossil fuels (i.e. coal and petroleum), or the reforming natural gas emit significant amount of CO2. Pre-combustion capture technologies such as absorption enhanced reforming (AER) of natural gas have been developed in the past few years and present interesting advantages such as: (1) production of carbon-free hydrogen, (2) cost efficiency and (3) CO2 separation.
Post-combustion CO2-capture at elevated temperature using Ca-based natural materials such as dolomite or limestone is also an important matter of research [1]. In that case CO2 is separated from the other flue gases after the combustion of the fuel gas. Strong efforts are thus put into the development of efficient post-combustion CO2-separation systems.